háček

See also: Appendix:Variations of "hacek"

English

WOTD – 28 October 2015

Alternative forms

• haček (attested since 1956), hacek (1959), hachek (1969)
• (rare) haċek (1967), hatcheck (1981), hatschek (1983), hatchek (1988), hacheck (1990), hac̬ek (1992), haczek (1995), hácek (1997), haĉek (2002), haceck (2003)

The central consonant, /tʃ/, is variously Anglicized as ch or tch, Germanized as tsch, Polonized as cz, or left as c, either bare or adorned with a tečka (ċ), circumflex (ĉ) or háček below it (c̬). The final consonant is sometimes written -ck instead of -k.

Háčeks adorning, from left to right:
c, e, l, ü (used in pinyin) and σ (as in Cypriot Greek)

Etymology

First attested in 1951; from the Czech háček (“háček”, literally “little hook”), the diminutive of hák (“hook”) (from Middle High German hāken, from Old High German hāko (“hook”), from Proto-Germanic *hakô (“hook”), from Proto-Indo-European *keg-, *keng- (“peg, hook”)) + the diminutive suffix -ek. Cognate with and formed like English hooklet and German Häkchen. Also cognate with Old English haca (“hook, door-fastening”) and modern English hake (more information below).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈhɑːt͡ʃɛk/, enPR: häʹchĕk
  • (Estuary English) IPA^(key): [ˈhɑːt͡ʃɛk]
  • (General American) IPA^(key): [ˈhɑt͡ʃɛk]
  • (New York City) IPA^(key): [ˈhɑət͡ʃɛk]
  • (Boston, Northern England) IPA^(key): [ˈhaːt͡ʃɛk]
  • (General Australian) IPA^(key): [ˈhaːt͡ʃek]
  • (New Zealand) IPA^(key): [ˈhɐːt͡ʃek]
  • (General South African) IPA^(key): [ˈɦɑːt͡ʃɛk]
• (Received Pronunciation, Geordie, Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˈhæt͡ʃɛk/, enPR: hăʹchĕk
  • (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): [ˈhæt͡ʃɛk]
  • (Geordie, Scotland) IPA^(key): [ˈhat͡ʃɛk]

• Audio (UK):

  (file)

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Audio (New York City):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɑːtʃɛk, -ætʃɛk

Noun

háček (plural háčeks or háčky)

1. (orthography and typography) A caron; a diacritical mark (ˇ) usually resembling an inverted circumflex, but in the cases of ď, Ľ, ľ, and ť resembling a prime (′) instead.
   • 1948, Bohumil Emil Mikula, Progressive Czech (Bohemian)‎^[1], page 6:

     The caret (ˇ), háček, is used over the following consonants: c, d, n, t, r, s, and z to indicate the soft sound.

   • 1951, Hans Jakob Polotsky, Notes on Gurage Grammar‎^[2], page 5:

     Linguistic forms had to be set in ordinary roman type and the capital C of Cäxa had to be left without a háček.

   • 1956, Morris Halle, editor, For Roman Jakobson‎^[3], page 332:

     Good Teutonic Kitsch looks rather forlorn and out of place wearing a Bohemian háček over its shrunken hind quarters. But the high traditions of scholarship must be maintained, and on these pages Meester Kitsch will masquerade as Mr. Kič.

   • 1966, Charles Ernest Bazell et al., editors, In Memory of J.R. Firth‎^[4], page 205:

     In the system used here and elsewhere in this article for Bantu tone, low syllables are unmarked, high syllables have an acute accent, and rising syllables a haček respectively; thus a, á, ǎ.

   • 1991, Peter Hugh Reed, American Record Guide‎^[5], LIV:ii, page 69:

     The printer had no hatchek — the flattened “v” that appears over letters in Czech — to put over Dvořak’s R. So somebody laboriously inked in all the hatcheks.

   • 2002, Torbjörn Lundmark, Quirky QWERTY‎^[6], page 34:

     háček used to signify the third tone (wǔ — ‘five’)

   • 2005, Stavroula Varella, Language Contact and the Lexicon in the History of Cypriot Greek‎^[7], page 46:

     Another orthographic practice […] was developed […] in the twentieth century: this is the adoption of the hacek for the representation of the Cypriot postalveolar fricatives and affricates, which are otherwise not distinguished by the normal characters of the Greek alphabet alone. It was not until very recently, therefore, that the spellings <σ̌>, <τσ̌>, <ζ̌> and <τζ̌>, for [ʃ], [tʃ], [ʒ] and [dʒ] respectively, became available.

   • 2006, Mary Betik Trojacek, Beyond Ellis Island‎^[8], page 17:

     My father always wrote Bětik with a little “v” called haĉek, above the “e”; Marušaks placed the haĉek above the “s”.

   • For examples of the usage of other forms of this term see Citations:háček, Citations:haček, Citations:hacek, Citations:haċek, Citations:hachek, Citations:hatcheck, Citations:hatschek, Citations:hǎcek, Citations:hatchek, Citations:hacheck, Citations:hac̬ek, Citations:haczek, Citations:háçek, Citations:hácek, Citations:haĉek, Citations:haceck and Citations:háčky.

Synonyms

• (háček diacritic): caret (non-standard), caron, chevron (informal), čiriklo (when used in Romani), clicka (rare), hat (non-standard, rare), hook (rare), inverted caret (informal), inverted circumflex (informal), inverted hat (non-standard), mäkčeň (when used in Slovak), palatal hook (rare, when it takes the form of a prime), strešica (when used in Slovene), wedge (US), wing (informal, rare)

a survey of other sources’ coverages

A survey of eleven other lexicographical sources reveals that LookWAYup and Vocabulary.com fully define wedge in the relevant sense, whilst Dictionary.com and the Random House Unabridged Dictionary (1997) give the typographic-cum-orthographic sense the one-word gloss “haček”, and WordNet 3.0 codefines it with háček; the six other sources, namely the American Heritage Dictionary, the Collins English Dictionary, the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionarist.com, the Oxford English Dictionary [2nd ed., 1989], and the UltraLingua English Dictionary, all omit this sense of wedge. All eleven sources list and define háček. Not one of the sources lists an entry for čiriklo, clicka, inverted caret, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, mäkčeň, palatal hook, or strešica; neither does any of them include the relevant sense in any of their entries for caret, chevron, hat, hook, or wing.

Coordinate terms

• (diacritics used in Latin-derived scripts): acute accent (above (´), below (ˏ), double (˝)), apostrophe (ʼ), breve (above (˘), below ( ̮)), bridge ( ̪), candrabindu ( ̐), cedilla (¸), circumflex (above (ˆ), below ( ̭)), comma (above right ( ̕), below ( ̦), reversed (ʽ), turned (ʻ)), diaeresis (above (¨), below ( ̤)), dot (overdot (˙), underdot ( ̣)), grave accent (above (`), below (ˎ), double ( ̏)), háček (above (ˇ), below ( ̬)), half ring (left (ʿ), right (ʾ)), hook (above ( ̉), palatal ( ̡), retroflex ( ̢), rhotic (˞)), horn ( ̛), inverted breve (above ( ̑), below ( ̯), double ( ͡ )), inverted bridge ( ̺), inverted double arch ( ̫), left angle ( ̚), low line (single ( ̲), double ( ̳)), macron (above (¯), below (ˍ)), minus (˗), ogonek (˛), overline (single (‾), double ( ̿)), plus (˖), ring (above (˚), below ( ̥)), seagull ( ̼), solidus (long ( ̸), short ( ̷)), square ( ̻), stroke (long ( ̶), short ( ̵)), tack (down (˕), left ( ̘), right ( ̙), up (˔)), tilde (above (˜), below ( ̰), double ( ͠ ), middle / overlay ( ̴), vertical ( ̾)), umlaut (¨), vertical line (above (ˈ), below (ˌ), double ( ̎)), x (ˣ)
• (Czech diacritics): čárka (´), háček (ˇ), kroužek (˚), tečka (˙)

Derived terms

• háček coefficient (optics)
• háček language (informal)
• háčekless (rare)

Translations

háček diacritic

• Arabic: كَارُون m (kārūn), كَارُون m (karon)
• Catalan: hàtxek m, anticircumflex m
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 揚抑符／扬抑符 (yángyìfú), 倒折音符 (dǎozhéyīnfú)

• Czech: háček (cs) m
• Dutch: háček c
• Esperanto: haĉeko, hoketo, dukorno, v-hoketo
• Estonian: katus (et)
• Finnish: hattu (fi)
• French: hatchek (fr) m, caron (fr) m, háček (fr) m, chevron (fr) m, accent hirondelle m
• German: Hatschek (de) m or n; (technical) Caron n; (informal) Krönchen n
• Hungarian: hacsek (hu), (somewhat informal) fordított kalap, (informal) pipa (hu)
• Icelandic: kría (is) f
• Italian: gancetto m, segno diacritico m, antiflesso m, pipa (it) f, caron m, hatchek m, chevron (it) m
• Japanese: ハーチェク (hācheku)
• Korean: 반대 곡절 부호 (bandae gokjeol buho)
• Lakota: ičášleče
• Lithuanian: paukščiukas
• Malayalam: മീതൽ (ml) (mītal)
• Pannonian Rusyn: квачка f (kvačka)
• Pannonian Rusyn: квачка f (kvačka)
• Polish: haczyk (pl) m
• Portuguese: caron m
• Romani: ćiriklo m
• Russian: га́чек (ru) m (gáček), га́чка f (gáčka)
• Serbo-Croatian:

  Cyrillic: квачица f, ква̏ка f

  Roman: kvačica (sh) f, kvȁka (sh) f

• Slovak: mäkčeň m
• Slovene: kljukica f, strešica f
• Spanish: carón (es) m, háček m
• Swedish: hake (sv) c
• Ukrainian: га́чек m (háček), гачо́к m (hačók)
• Venetan: pipa f
• Winnebago: wookanak

See also

• (Letters using háček sign):  Ǎǎ  Čč  Ďď  Ěě  Ǧǧ  Ȟȟ  Ǐǐ  J̌ǰ  Ǩǩ  Ľľ  Ňň  Ǒǒ  Řř  Šš  Ťť  Ǔǔ  Ǚǚ  Žž  Ǯǯ  DŽDždž  DŽDždž

Further reading

• háček on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• Cheka, akche, hecka

Czech

Etymology

From hák +‎ -ek. The diminutive form of hák (“hook”); compare the German Häkchen. More information is in the 'Etymology' subsection of 'English' section.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): [ˈɦaːt͡ʃɛk]

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

háček m inan

1. diminutive of hák; little hook
2. fishhook
3. (linguistics) háček (diacritic)
4. catch, snag (a concealed difficulty, especially in a deal or negotiation)
5. (canoeing) bow
   • 2005, Martin Patřičný, Dřevo krásných stromů, Praha: Grada Publishing, →ISBN, page 20:

     Mně se ta holka nijak zvlášť nelíbila, ale když jsem ji měl na háčku (pro nevodáky vpředu v kanoi), tak byla dobrá.

     I didn't like the girl very much, but when she was at the bow (for non-canoeists the front of the canoe), she was good.

Declension

Declension of háček (velar masculine inanimate reducible)

	singular	plural
nominative	háček	háčky
genitive	háčku	háčků
dative	háčku	háčkům
accusative	háček	háčky
vocative	háčku	háčky
locative	háčku	háčcích, háčkách
instrumental	háčkem	háčky

Descendants

• English: háček
• Japanese: ハーチェク (hācheku)
• Russian: га́чек (gáček)

See also

• udice
• čárka

Noun

háček m anim

1. (canoeing) bow paddler

   Antonyms: zadák, kormidelník

   • 2007, Jakub Turek with et al, Outdoorový průvodce - Český ráj: 31 tipů, kam na výlet‎^[9], Praha: Grada Publishing, →ISBN, page 84:

     Kormidelník musí ovládat základní záběry, háček může být bez větších zkušeností.

     The stern paddler has to know the basic strokes, the bow paddler doesn't need to have much experience.

Declension

Declension of háček (velar masculine animate reducible)

	singular	plural
nominative	háček	háčci, háčkové
genitive	háčka	háčků
dative	háčkovi, háčku	háčkům
accusative	háčka	háčky
vocative	háčku	háčci, háčkové
locative	háčkovi, háčku	háčcích
instrumental	háčkem	háčky

Further reading

• “háček”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
• “háček”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
• “háček”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech)

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Czech háček (“háček”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /at.ʃɛk/

Noun

háček m (plural háčeks)

1. háček

Further reading

• “háček”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.